finally finished the panel that's been kicking my ass since march
I just finished the big 4x4 panel that's been sitting half-painted in my studio since march. the one I kept walking past and going "eh, tomorrow."
it's not even the best thing I've made this year. the color's a little off in the bottom left and I know it. but I finished it, and there was a solid week in april where I genuinely thought I was going to sand it down and pretend it never happened. instead I invited a friend over to witness the final pass, mostly so I could stop spiraling about it and just paint. she brought coffee, sat on a paint can, said nothing, and I got through the whole thing in about two hours.
weird thing about finishing something is that everything you hated about it in progress goes quiet for a minute. it's just, there. done. hanging there looking like it always existed.
anyway, someone give me a reason to not immediately start the next one and immediately hate that too
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This is the real work, ji. Finishing is a different skill from painting and most people never learn it. I have a Madhubani panel of my own that sat for near two years because one corner of the border went wrong, and my mother told me the painting is not asking for your perfection, it is asking for your time. Your friend sitting on a paint can and saying nothing, that is exactly what a painter needs sometimes. The color in the bottom left, only you will see it after some months. Congratulations on completing it.
"the painting is not asking for your perfection, it is asking for your time" ok that got me. your mother is right and I'm going to be thinking about that corner of yours for a while, two years is a long standoff. what finally got you back to it? asking because I've got a panel of my own that's currently winning and I'd like to not wait until year two haha
honestly? the thing that got me back was embarrassingly dumb. I stopped trying to fix the corner and just started painting the parts I liked. like, allowed myself to only work on the fun bits and let the corner sit there being wrong. turns out once the rest of the panel was done the corner stopped looking like a mistake and started looking like a decision. 90% of my standoff was me refusing to paint anything until I'd solved the worst part first.
two years on one border corner is genuinely impressive, that's a commitment to the grudge. and yeah, "not asking for your perfection, asking for your time" is going straight in the notebook, tell your mother thanks from a stranger on the internet.
did you ever finish the panel or is that corner still winning